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Enric Mas

reaches the finish line, dries his face and under the towel appears a gesture of radiant happiness, unprecedented since that Vuelta in 2018 in which he was second after winning the decisive stage in Andorra. He even recognizes it himself, on his best day since defending the

Movistar

colors

. That solid leader, capable of fighting for the great tours, who saw him in the telephone team when they launched for his signing, finally shines in the toughest stage of what we have in Vuelta. Only

Primoz Roglic

endured Mas's wheel on arrival at

Velefique

And that is equivalent to an A, because right now there is no possible comparison between the Slovenian and the rest of the runners in this race. Among them, the Spaniard claims to be the strongest and appears as the only one capable of unseating Roglic on the way to Santiago, however unlikely the mission may seem.

The Alto de Velefique finally ordered the strongest of the Vuelta, after a first week lacking in emotion. The hierarchies are now clear, with Roglic in the lead, Mas behind him and

Miguel Ángel López

on the next step, provisional podium of the race.

Egan Bernal

exhibits weakness and the distribution of roles in Ineos is reopened, now with

Adam Yates

as an opponent to the position of head of ranks.

Jack Haig

also appears as an alternative to replace

Mikel Landa

who lived through an ordeal that takes him away from any option to fight in the general classification in which, curiously, it was a great day for Bahrain, winner of the stage thanks to an exhibition by

Damiano Caruso

since the escape.

It was an electric day, with many different phases.

At the Alto Collado Venta Luisa, about 60 kilometers from the finish line, Ineos proposed an infernal pace that accelerated the march and reduced the distance of the escape, already led by Caruso, to less than two minutes.

Bernal's gregarious were trying to isolate Roglic, but the

Jumbo

held the type and also

Verona

to the aid of Mas and López, already lost the invaluable help of Valverde in days of this caliber.

From then on, the Jumbo returned to the head of the race, leading the peloton unhurriedly towards the decisive final ascent to Velefique, 13 kilometers at an average of 7.2%.

The final war

Arrived at the base of the port, the

Ineos

took up the head again to dismember the group. In those first accelerations Landa gave way, with all the ascent ahead, confirming the bad feelings that he had already outlined in previous arrivals. He reached the finish line four minutes behind Mas and Roglic and is now 5:47 in the general classification, with three teammates from his own team ahead (Haig, Mäder and Caruso). The partial victories are already his only refuge for the remaining two weeks of competition.

In the first kilometers of ascent, the hardest, a card game began between the second spades. Yates, the most active, tried several attacks and

'Supermán' López

answered all of them

, very attentive. The group was doing the accordion, with constant attacks and regrouping, in the central part of the ascent, the kindest of all. By then, Aleksandr Vlasov had already realized that he was going to waste a lot of time with the best.

The final attack took place just over four kilometers away and was launched by Mas.

Only Roglic could respond to the harsh change of pace proposed by the Spaniard, with López waiting on his back and Bernal suffering without his partner Yates caring too much.

Mas and Roglic were making their way to the final meters, in which the greater speed of the Slovenian allowed him to grab the bonus and sting the Spanish for a second.

Nothing to tarnish his superb performance.

"It had been a long time since I enjoyed it as much as this week," he said later.

It shows.

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